The money was donated to the church in the months after the shootings last June. Church leaders say only $280,000 worth of donations specified the money go to the victims' families, and the church decided to add more than $1 million to those gifts, said Wilbur Johnson, the church's attorney.

The Charleston Hope Fund has already distributed more than $3 million in donations according to a formula that splits 55 percent of donations equally among the nine victims' beneficiaries, 25 percent among the five shooting survivors, 10 percent among children of those killed, 5 percent to education expenses and 5 percent to a special needs account.